The Weekly Roundup: 3.2

Publishers can now embed Twitter videos, and Instagram has created clickable links. See what else is new …

Instagram never allowed URLs to open until now. It wanted people browsing photos, not the web. But Instagram says its advertisers demanded more vivid ways to influence people who “lead to meaningful results for their businesses.”
For the first time, Instagram will start showing clickable links, but only in its new multi-photo carousel ads that can tell a story by letting you swipe through four branded images in sequence.
The new “Learn More” button that houses these links will open a URL in an internal browser within Instagram that allows you to quickly jump back to the feed with a tap of the top bar.
Until now, Instagram’s ads have been primarily for institutional advertisers looking for influence, but not necessarily immediate sales.
For now, these ads will just include photos, but Instagram is considering whether to allow videos in carousels too.

Facebook Warns Of Dips In ‘Like’ Count, Updates Metrics

In the coming days and weeks, Facebook is telling brands and other Page owners to expect a noticeable dip in “like” counts.
“We’re updating the way Page likes are counted by removing memorialized and voluntarily deactivated accounts from Pages’ like counts,” the social giant explains in a blog post. “It’s important to remember, though, that these removed likes represent people who were already inactive on Facebook.”
Facebook already filters out likes and comments generated by deactivated or memorialized accounts from individual Page posts.

Why Google+ is splitting into photos and streams

The social network clearly still exists and looks unchanged from a user perspective, but the way it’s being framed internally and perhaps in the public going forward appears to be shifting.
“Just wanted to confirm that the rumors are true — I’m excited to be running Google’s Photos and Streams products!” Bradley Horowitz wrote on his Google+ (er, Photos and Streams?) account. “It’s important to me that these changes are properly understood to be positive improvements to both our products and how they reach users.”
Google launched the social network nearly four years ago after a series of false starts in the social space.
Additional speculation.

Facebook Letting Bored Users Choose Breaks of 1-28 Days?

Rather than ignoring Facebook fatigue, Facebook is apparently testing a feature that it hopes will lure back users who choose to deactivate their accounts.
MarketWatch reported that some users who deactivate their Facebook profiles are being shown the option to automatically reactivate those profiles at any time between one day and 28 days, with the users choosing the time period during which their accounts will remain dormant.

Instagram may have more than 100 million US users in 2018

Photo-sharing app Instagram could have a US user base of 106.2 million in 2018, forecasts eMarketer, before growth begins to slow and dip into single digits for the first time.
In 2014, the number of US Instagram users increased 60%, bringing its US monthly user base to 64.2 million people.
Instagram surpassed Twitter to become the second-largest social network in the US last year. Twitter’s US user base grew 12.1% in 2014 with a total of 48.4 million users.

Slingshot introduced an Explore feature this week similar to the one that was added to Rooms last December.
The Explore feature was introduced in a Slingshot blog post:
- Explore is a place to discover funny, inspiring and creative people from across the globe. It features popular people who are active on Slingshot. You can view their shots and then decide who you want to follow. If you don’t want to be featured in Explore, you can turn on Approve Followers in Settings.

Twitter Unveils Video Widget For Publishers

Twitter this week is rolling out an embedded video widget for publishers.
“Video embeds are available for videos captured and uploaded through Twitter’s applications for iOS and Android as well as Twitter Amplify partners,” Niall Kennedy, a developer advocate at Twitter, explains in a new blog post.
With the widget, publishers can highlight Twitter-hosted video on their sites. The new feature relies on the same JavaScript used to render Tweet buttons and embedded Tweets.